Sixpenny Handley to Chapel Down and Chase Wood

We were staying in The Malthouse, a lovely cottage in the village of Shroton (Iwerne Courtney) between Shaftesbury and Blandford Forum. On this holiday.  our walks were mostly on the Jubilee Trail, but we were meeting up this afternoon with our grandson and his father and other grandmother at Cranborne Manor Garden, so we wanted a relatively short walk, preferably quite close to Cranborne ; a "Cranborne Circle" seemed ideal, and this one was designed to link between a suitable parking place near Sixpenny Handley that we'd spotted last year, the Hardy Way through Chase Woods (walked on the same day last year) and the long drive past Chapel Down Farm that we had walked down when on a circuit including parts of the Jubilee Trail, just four days ago. We were here about the same time as last year, so we were hoping for bluebells in Chase Woods. We weren't disappointed, and there were also masses of three-cornered leeks, especially in Greatstone Coppice.

The parking place is to the north-east of Sixpenny Handley at SU001177. When we arrived I wasn't so sure that this was a good place to park; it was very muddy and it looked as if people were in the habit of driving straight across the patch of land at the junction. However, Richard managed to park out of the mud and well to the side so that vehicles could get past if they wanted to. We set off walking around 9.30am, starting off  by following the road to and through the village. So what's with the name "Sixpenny Handley"? The village was originally known as Handley or Handley St Mary, and the "Sixpenny" was added to distinguish it from other Handleys. The village was in the hundred of Sixpenny Handley, originally "Sexpenne et Henle", where "Sexpenny" actually derives from "hill of the Saxons". It has nothing whatsoever to do with money!, but that doesn't stop it from being abbreviated to "6d" on signposts etc. 

The Church is a pretty little place and it was bedecked with bunting, a reminder that the coronation of King Charles III was only a few days away.  We also noticed a wooden wheel on display just outside the churchyard and this turned out to be a memorial to the fire which took place in 1892, destroying most of the houses in the village and rendering 186 people homeless. It appears that the fire started when a spark from the wheelwright's yard set the thatched roof of an adjoining building on fire. It happened in a period of drought, so ponds that could normally have been used as a source of water to quench the flames had dried up. 

A lane, which seems to be called Brushy Bush Lane, heads off from Back Lane, close to its junction with the B3081, just opposite Sixpenny Handley's primary school. We followed this lane, which seemed quite popular with dog walkers. The map tells me we passed Brushy Bush House (I can't say I remember it) and after a fork to the left, our route narrowed to a footpath and emerged at the cross-roads of paths at ST982159, where we had turned left after the rather tedious walk on the drive past Chapel Down Farm on Saturday, being passed by the post van going backwards and forwards. Today we turned right, so we didn't actually repeat the route at all, but as we turned, we looked back to where we'd been walking on Saturday, and it didn't actually look too bad.

Meanwhile we were walking on a pleasant track running the edge of a field of oil seed rape. Later, just before we reached the B3081, there was a lovely wooded section, with some bluebells, and after crossing the road, our path was shown to the right of the woodland, but we could see that there were permissive paths heading into Greatstone Coppice. We tried following one of these permissive paths, hoping that we'd manage to get through to Bridmore Ride. Greatstone Coppice was beautiful, with a mass of white flowers (three cornered leeks) but the paths we tried all petered out, so we had to return to our walk across the farmland, on the right-hand side of the wood. We'd encountered some difficulties last year when crossing the farmland slightly to the north, and this year some of the stiles we had to cross were distinctly wobbly, so we were quite pleased to reach a footpath we could use to get into the wood at Withywind Coppice.

This time, we were able to get through to Bridmore Avenue, a magnificent tree-lined avenue. We followed this avenue to the north, until we reached Shire Rack, a path along the Wiltshire-Dorset boundary. We turned right here, on the route of the Hardy Way, retracing our steps from last year onto Great Shatesbury Coppice. Last year we had walked along Shire Rack all the way from Garston Wood via Shermel Gate, and we could have returned that way, or we could have turned right with the Hardy Way and then cut across to Deanland (as did on our return leg last year). However, we wanted to use a different route so, after stopping for lunch, sitting on a tree trunk, we took an intermediate path through the woods which brought us out in New Town, then we turn right and headed through Deanland and so back to the car. We were in plenty of time to get to Cranborne Manor Garden to meet Yvonne, Tom and Bertie.